


Break the ice

by Beethelesda



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, I Blame Tumblr, Ice Skating, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:50:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beethelesda/pseuds/Beethelesda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I kept on showing up, always on time.<br/>He kept on ignoring me.<br/>I kept on failing at touching him, always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break the ice

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time following a prompt I found on tumblr. I'm always super excited when someone suggests their ideas for an AU, but since I fail so easily at writing, I always give up and let other talented people to pursue the glory.  
> Unfortunately, it happens I have a thing for ice skating since I was a kid (I suck at it and I can barely slide on my skates without someone holding me, but I've always been a huge fan) and so I let myself go.
> 
> As you might feel from my writing, this piece is translated from Italian to English and I still feel it needs more revision, so any suggestion is more than welcome. I have received some nice feedback in the past and it has helped me A LOT, thank you (◡‿◡✿)
> 
> On a last sidenote, I'm sorry but you won't find any detailed sex scene here, for my hot situations always end up being barely lukewarm and I am so friggin' ashamed I AM SORRY.

Many people believe that ice is fearful.  
And given that Winnipeg is considered the coldest city in the world, they do make quite a point .  
I'm biased, though, I actually work with ice.

It never mattered that much, tho.  
That white, thick sheet, scratched by the nails of my skates, was nothing but a battlefield in my eyes.  And I, armed to the teeth, would vent every frustration by chasing a rubber disk the size of a coaster.  
I could have done it on any surface.  
What truly mattered was victory.  
The ice was nothing but a frame, it was inanimate, a nameless permanent feature.  
This was before seeing  _him_.

The engine of the car had been engulfed by the cold, that day.  
Horrified at the idea of being late to training, I made use of public transport, arriving at the stadium so early that even the most anxious of boyfriends on a first date would have laughed at me.  
I didn't know that someone was using the ice rink for training before my team.  
I kinda suspected so, but I thought it was a bracket of children who could barely stand up on their blades.  
I didn't expect someone like _him_.

There was music, but I couldn't hear it.  
My entire being would just freeze on the top of the stairs, bag dropped on the ground, staring.  
The ice was alive.

He was sliding along the edge of the rink as if he had no weight, backwards, making fun of any physical force that had the presumption of acting on earth. He was a sinuous curve, a breath of wind, a sharp movement of a brush on a white sheet .  
He rose and landed without making noise, circumscribing wide circles with his flickering blades.  
He had green skates and kept his eyes closed.  
He knew the rink by heart, he didn't need to see it, it was the ice itself telling him where to go.  
He caressed the air with undisguised lust, then he grasped it and sprang up, pirouetting like a ballerina. He then fell, soft on his long legs, closing his arms. Then he stood up and reopened his palms, lifting up for another flight, without ever leaving a mark, without scratching the surface.  
I was dumbfounded, as if I had never seen anyone skating in my entire life.

He raised his hands and bent his spine backwards in a perfect arc, lifting one leg in front of him, bending effortlessly. He could almost touch the ice with the tip of his fingers, over his head. Then he hoisted back on his feet and leaned forward.  
He never stopped to catch his breath.  
He continued to twist and cut the rink diagonally, cleaving  the air with sharp blows of his skates and closing the wounds with soft gestures of his hands.   
He bent again, winding, right and left, summoning the mysterious force that made him effortlessly soar, as if an invisible partner was accompanying his dance.  
And it seemed as if he was infusing life to the ice, and he would gather it all in his chest and pull it up into the air in thousands of brilliant confetti against the spotlights. As if  he was calling out for the cold itself and would oblige it to push him in a swing of jumps and turns.  
He woke up the ice, he commanded it, with the same gentle authority of a beautiful strict mother.  
And then he turned, whimsical, twirling incessantly in the middle of the ice rink, where his figure was blurred and the only thing that was left of him was the icy, flickering ghost of a draft of air.  
And he stopped as if he had never moved.  
On his knees, hands pressed flat on the ice, his breath broken and his head held down, thankful for the dance.

During the training session that followed, I felt like a big clumsy bull with skates.

*

His name was Luka Loktionov, but the attendants of the stadium used to call him  _Snow Queen_.   
They said that he was always quiet, deadly punctual and absolutely didn't want to be bothered by anyone and for any reason. He would train every day, two hours of non-stop skating. All the coaches he had tried had been fired in less then a few months and he didn't attend the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 just because he was slightly too young.   
But he was Canada's Golden Ticket for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Soči, Russia.  
Arriving early for my training suddenly became a habit.

I came to know of his affair with Fred by chance.  
I saw the two of them kissing in the corridor that led to the showers.  
I remember everything in a very dull and sterile way.  
At first I mistook him for a girl because his hair was loose and very long - and I knew Fred's habits quite well.   
But when he turned to catch his breath, I admit I drifted in a very bad mood.  
I didn't know what to exactly expect, indeed, there was nothing to be expected.  
I had just spent the previous month watching him skate.  
But the idea of Fred fucking him, it haunted me.  
When we were training against each other, my line of defense was unsurpassed.  
Especially if Fred was the one trying.

I tried to come to terms with defeat.  
I tried to arrive late to training for a few days.  
I tried to strike up a conversation with Fred.  
I tried to give a call to that alluring girl who had left her number several nights before at the pub.

I had some tasteless sex.  
I couldn't laugh at any of Fred's jokes.  
I found myself watching figure skating videos on youtube, lying on the couch with too much beer in my body.  
It burned, oh, if it burned.

*

Luka was standing on his knees in the middle of the ice rink.  
Then he raised his arm, pointing at the dark vault of the stadium.  
He moved his other arm and it was as if he had given himself the command to stand up, raising perfectly still on his pointy skates.  
He spread his arms and began to turn, slowly.  
His pirouettes began to widen.  
The blades were gliding on the smooth surface, hissing.  
His twisting was interspersed with precise jumps and clean landings on one foot .  
He continued to spin, chin up and eyes closed, his hands to accompany the movements.  
He was enjoying a long, delicate, lonely waltz, embracing the chilly breeze born by the speed of his revolutions.  
He drew coils in the center of the rink, crossing his feet and distinctly moving his hips. His arms were waving.  
He clenched his hands on his chest and began to turn, stooping slowly on his knees.  
Motionless again, on the tip of his blades, with his arms and chin up.

I approached the edge of the rink, near the entrance, where there weren't any glass bulkheads.  
I leaned forward,  resting on my elbows and looking at him.  
Luka skated toward the gate.  
He had the same look of a deer facing his hunter, but well aware that the hunting season was over.  
His skin was white as snow and his eyes were sagebrush covered with dew. He kept his black hair entwined in a braid around his head, held by a dozen white hairpins.  
And I wanted him so bad and I was so close I could almost touch him.

I kept on getting closer also during the following days.  
He kept on skating and looking at me.  
I kept on failing at touching him, always.

*

The MTS Centre has approximately fifteen seats and, when it's empty, it gets kinda intimidating.  
It was appalling to hear Fred's voice filling the silence after our workout.  
He was holding Luka by the neck of his sweater and was towering upon him, spatting in his face any kind of offense. Luka was trying to hold onto the backs of the green seats but it seemed that, sooner or later, Fred's tonnage and all his cruelty would have ended up overwhelming him.  
I rushed in, in shorts and socks, just in time to hear Fred screaming  _bitch_  for the twentieth time and I saw him raising his right hand.  
I sprang, but the slap was much faster than me.  
I hurried, making my way through a tick rain of  _whore, slut, bastard_ , but all those offenses were too dense.  
Fred effortlessly left Luka off the ground and threw him down the stairs.

He landed and didn't move.

It took four of our team plus two attendants to restrain Fred, but he was still screaming without shame nor brake nor restraint, that  _if taking him up the ass once in a while was such a great distraction from that shitty skating dance for sissies, then he would have cracked him open once and for all, so that he would stop mocking him_.  
It was dreadful to hear, but I heard nothing.  
My hands were shaking and my knees had scraped against the cement floor, and I didn't know how to touch Luka.  
His left leg had an unnatural turn.  
And he was clasping his hands to his chest, staring at the ceiling, gasping.

*

I realized that there are two kinds of frost.  
One is brought by ice and snow, the one Luka ruled so well from the top of his silver blades .  
The other is brought by defeat and loneliness, and it strips anyone of all their powers.

His bed at the St. Boniface General Hospital was in a corner, in front of a window.  
Luka was resting his head on the pillow, his hair tangled in a braid.  
I went to see him every day, after the incident.  
Every day.  
During visiting hours I would sit next to his bed and I wouldn't hear him speak not even once. He would only stare at his leg closed a plaster cast.   
It seemed as if he wasn't living in this world anymore.

I kept on showing up, always on time.  
He kept on ignoring me.  
I kept on failing at touching him, always.

I brought him a box of tea bags and left it on the beside table before sitting down.  
«My aunt says it's good for your bones . There is a strange thing inside that is called Devil's Claw... and some Hawthorn».  
I dragged the chair beside the bed and took off my anorak, hanging it on the back.  
«When I was a kid, I lived in Weyburn, in the countryside».  
The chair creaked a bit.  
«I had a thing for injured or stray animals. I would always find a cat, a dog, someone who needed a little care from me and I would take him home. My mother couldn't stand it anymore, she would always tell me " _Theodore, this house is not a zoo!_  " But every animal I let in, I've always healed him at my best. My father was convinced I would become a vet. But one day, I was around twelve, behind a bush I found a bird with a broken wing. I told myself that I couldn't do much for that wing, because I didn't know how to mend it and that I'd better leave the bird where he was to avoid doing even more harm. I went back the next day with some grains for my parrot, but the bird was dead. I felt so guilty as if I had killed him. It haunts me to this day, that brown bird as big as the palm of my hand. I haven't helped, it was my fault. Perhaps, if I had brought him home, he would have lived a little longer. I still ask me that».  
I fiddled nervously with the box of tea, moving it from side to side of the beside table.  
«And now... Now you have a broken wing. And as long as you don't recover, I swear on my honor that I'll be here».

Luka had a delicate profile and was breathing softly, his lips were slightly parted.  
Every time I looked at him I realized how much I wanted to kiss him.  
And the more I wanted to kiss him, the less I would dare, the more I would fall in love.

I got up from the chair at six in the evening.  
He stood up too, raising his back.  
«Tomorrow I will be dismissed», he said, his eyes lost somewhere on my sweater.  
His voice was hoarse and soft.  
I stammered something stupid.  
He took the box of tea in his hands.  
I lifted his chin with two fingers and, I admit, right now I don't remember whether I kissed him or not.

*

I saw him again a few weeks later at the MTS, after my training.  
He had left his crutches against the barrier of the rink and was sitting on the floor, in front of the open gate.  
He was caressing the ice.

«Do you miss it that much?» I asked, startling him.  
I looked around and there were no attendants in sight.

I made him sit down on the plastic sheet that is used to drag the kids on the rink and help them getting confident around the ice. I put on my skates and dragged him around the perimeter, stopping at the center after a couple laps.  
Luka laid his head on the ice and closed his eyes, with his arms open and his hands resting against the cold surface.  
That kiss, that one I do remember it perfectly.  
I remember his cold hand on my neck and my palms planted against the ice. It felt like drowning.  
Eyes shut, mouth to mouth, his was anything but cold and tasted good and minty.  
Bent over him, on all fours, it felt as if all my ego was slipping inside him through my lips, spilling into his chest , filling in the blanks.  
And the ice was alive and silent and was holding its breath, and I had it broken, I finally had it broken. Or maybe there had never been ice between us, not in the middle, but around, below, to be our bed, for us whom never were meant, for me whom never had dared, for him whom only knew how to speak by dancing.

I kept on waiting for his return on the rink.  
He was not to be seen for a couple of months.  
I kept on waiting.

*

There's the sound of sharp blades sliding on the ice.  
Luka is skating along the edge of the rink, swaying on one foot and then on the other, nodding, concentrated.  
Theodore leans his elbows on the edge of the rink, near the gate and looks at him in silence.  
He waits.  
Luka opens the gate and glances at Theo with his same, malicious look.

«I'm glad you're feeling better».  
«I'm not completely healed yet - Luka replies, approaching him, still wearing his skates. - Please, stay».


End file.
